


Say It Right (Twist You Right Around Remix)

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mirror Universe, power struggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:54:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk writes a letter for McCoy, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say It Right (Twist You Right Around Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hallmark Moment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/77054) by [BrighteyedJill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill). 



> Written for the [](http://issenterprise.livejournal.com/profile)[**issenterprise**](http://issenterprise.livejournal.com/) Remix challenge! I was given [](http://brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com/profile)[**brighteyed_jill**](http://brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com/)’s fics to remix, and I chose her ficlet [Hallmark Moment](http://brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com/74391.html#cutid1) to remix into a mirror!verse adaptation. I had a bit of fun with it, and I think it turned out all right, if not a bit abstract. Continuing with my theme of exploring how people in mirror!verse tick, this came out.

*

2261.89

Jo,

It’s been a long while since I’ve heard from you. Hope you’re doing well. Your last video call was cut short, but things were going on, and I know that. Video calls are hard to organize, so these will have to do for now, while we’re out in deep space. I miss you, baby. Heard you took the highest marks in your combat classes. Captain Kirk says it’s good to practice, but you should keep up with everything else, too. Hang in there, I know it gets rough. It’ll get harder, too.

Daddy

[MESSAGE COMPLETE. STATUS: SENT]

\--

2261.95

Jo,

Remember what I told you the last time I wrote. Not sure if you even get these, but even when times are rough, I’m your father and I’ll take care of you. You don’t need him, I’ll still take care of you, because I’m

[MESSAGE TERMINATED. STATUS: DELETED]

Jo,

Sorry to hear what happened to your stepfather, hope you and your mother are both keeping safe instead of staying in the open. I won’t be in the sector for the funerary pyre, but I did get the notice for it. I’ll be back to Earth in early spring, when the trees are budding. I’m missing you, baby. Tell me about your Academy.

Daddy

[MESSAGE COMPLETE. STATUS: SENT]

\--

2262.00

Jo,

I’ve sent something through the transport delivery to the house for the New Year. It should arrive in the next few days, but use it to protect yourself. I saw your hand-to-hand and weaponry marks for the term when they were sent out on the broadcast. I’m proud of you. Captain Kirk suggested this one when we were in the Orion system, and I think the blade is small enough for you to keep with you. I love you.

Daddy

[MESSAGE COMPLETE. STATUS: SENT]

\--

2262.08

Jo,

I know I’ve said it before, but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard from you. I’m not going to worry. I know you’re old enough and you’re taking care of yourself and your mother, but it’d be good to hear from you, to hear about things there.

Daddy

[MESSAGE COMPLETE. STATUS: SENT]

*

The hardest part, McCoy thinks, is the distance, though he’s never been good with words, more likely to walk away than confront anyone, even for the good things; even to send a greeting from across the quadrant to his daughter, who doesn’t remember him except by the occasional video calls that are allotted to him by Communications. Text is easier to transmit, takes less energy from the ship’s weaponry, and McCoy hates how flat and disinterested he sounds whenever he sends mail to his girl. Mail he isn’t even sure she ever sees, because her mother hates him after the incident with her brand, new husband, the one that mysteriously dropped dead. McCoy told her she was projecting, but he’ll never admit that he knows the truth.

The truth is this: Leonard McCoy has never killed a man, but he has seen other people do it, and other people have done it for him. Joanna only answers his messages occasionally, always looks distracted on their video calls. It’s been worse, more sporadic since his ex-wife’s late husband died (it was by Kirk’s hand, he knows it, though he wasn’t there and didn’t need to be), and it takes everything for Leonard not to tell her what’s coming, that she’ll be with him soon enough. He loves her more than anything, more than anyone, even Kirk, who looks up at him from the bed, all sharp, knowing eyes and feline danger hanging around him.

“What are you doing now, Bones?” he calls, and McCoy hates the way something crawls up his spine. It’s a shiver, a tremble, and he hasn’t been sure for years if it’s in fear or loathing or lust, though he suspects it’s all of them. Kirk is everything McCoy isn’t, even with the sense of cruelty he catches pooling in his joints, tightening like a spring ready to burst free, something he can’t even consciously control.

“Writing my girl,” McCoy tells him, and though Kirk raises his voice as if the quarters are big enough for that, McCoy doesn’t do the same. There’s no need to escalate this, to encourage him, but Kirk climbs out of the bed and strides toward him with that horrible smile of his. There’s no reason to love this man, to want him, to do anything but run, but he’s not going to play cat-and-mouse with someone who would enjoy the chase almost as much as the slow, torturous capture. Kirk is like this most of the time, self-assured and arrogant and controlling, he’ll never admit that he’s jealous and possessive, that he envies Joanna just for being McCoy’s own flesh and blood and marrow. He’s the worst kind of man in the Empire, and he’s made sure that McCoy owes him his whole life, not a day less.

“It’s been a while since you’ve written Joanna,” he notes, and when he’s standing next to McCoy, he squeezes his shoulder, feeling all the tension bundled up there, and he smirks a little wider. It’s when he leans closer to the screen and his smile seems to fade that McCoy’s stomach turns. “But it looks like you haven’t written anything at all. You’ve been at this a whole hour, haven’t you?”

“Hard with you hovering around right there,” McCoy tells him; though they both know it’s a lie.

Kirk only laughs then, but he pushes McCoy’s hands away from the board. “I’ll get this one, Bones,” he whispers into his ear, and there’s that shiver again, with a skip in the cadence of his heart’s beating, his breath freezing in his lungs. Everything feels like stone, but he watches the screen instead of Kirk’s large, capable hands moving over the keyboard, taking every secret thought from his head and spinning it in the charming, charismatic way McCoy’s never been able to do.

Kirk steps away from the console, admiring the message glaring across the screen like it’s a work of art, and it kind of is, though McCoy doesn’t want to give into his whims any more now than ever; never, never, never—

Kirk starts to read it out loud, softening his voice and making it sound charming and sweet, not even a hint of teasing sultriness there, and McCoy can’t even clap his hands over his ears to block out the words he doesn’t want to hear, not from Kirk.

“Hey there, pretty girl. I’ve been thinking about you lately, missing you like crazy. Be good to your mother, and I’ll see you sooner than you know. Break a few hearts out there. Love,” Kirk pauses and grins down at McCoy, bends forward and kisses the hard shell of his ear, the shining scars behind his earlobe, and whispers, “ _Daddy._ ”

“Fuck you, Kirk,” McCoy spits, pushing away from the desk, away from Kirk, who presses the command button to send the message before McCoy can take those words back; no way to reach through space and time to hide them from Joanna.

“At this rate, you’ll never get around to telling little JoJo that her daddy’s coming to get her from her mommy.” Kirk drops the false pretenses of a cheerful tone. “You’re shit at this, Bones.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” McCoy counters, standing up from the console and walking away while Kirk’s words—not his own, but if Jo even reads them she’ll think they are—bounce around inside his head.

“Were you going to let this go?” Kirk follows after him like a goddamn puppy, but he’s strong, and he wheels McCoy around when he catches up to him, gripping his wrist so tightly. McCoy knows he’s showing restraint, too, which only makes it worse. “You wanted your daughter, and I’m getting her for you. I took care of—”

“I _know_ what you did, and if you want me to say I appreciate that you make something look easy, and I shouldn’t struggle with it, you’re going to be real goddamn disappointed. She’s my daughter, and I can’t even figure out how to talk to her, but I goddamn appreciate it, Kirk.”

“It’s Jim,” he tells him smoothly, unperturbed by the sudden outburst, ignoring it entirely. McCoy suspects that he doesn’t care that he’s maddening, good at everything he does, even if he doesn’t want it. He’ll charm Joanna because he can, because he’ll prove that he can take that from McCoy, to possess her entirely like he does her father, but he’ll bring her here to give McCoy what he wants, even when it’s not going to be the way it ought to be. There’s no other option, though, and McCoy hates that, hates him for it. “I’m always Jim to you, Bones.”

“Like you’re _Tiberius_ to Moreau, and to all the women you drag in here like I’m supposed to—” McCoy begins, but Kirk touches his index finger to his own lips and lifts his eyebrows in the kind of subtle warning that would stop even a berserker Chekov in his tracks; McCoy’s seen it happen.

“Like you’re supposed to recognize that I’m the captain of this ship, Bones, and I’ll do what I damn well please. _Including_ bring a woman to _my_ quarters and put down a few rumors on board the ship.”

“I’ve poisoned enough pre-natal vitamins to know what you’re trying to prove, Kirk,” he spits, forgetting that he’s supposed to be Jim, that he’s not supposed to bring these things up—not here, not now, not ever. He knows better than to cross that line, but he’s been pushing it all evening, all year while pacing like a caged cat, waiting to hear from Joanna, to get to Earth to retrieve her and _know_ she’ll always be safe, trapped with a bunch of lunatics on a warship, but with him, and there’s nowhere safer.

“You’re letting yourself get distracted from the thing that matters right now, Bones,” Kirk chides and sits down on the edge of the bed, smirking up at him again. “You want your daughter, and I’m going to get her for you, just like I promised. A token of my affection, if you want to go that far.”

“I don’t want it,” McCoy hisses back at him, but he’s drawn closer by Kirk’s stare, leveled on him. He’s just angry, and Kirk knows it as well as he does. He’s not angry enough to walk away, to request a transfer, or to hide Joanna away from Kirk, because he knows he’s a monster, but a monster that he’s appeased long enough to free himself of the threat of Kirk’s violence, except when he has a point to make.

“Don’t say that,” Kirk says, almost sounds genuinely wounded, and unbuttons the front of McCoy’s trousers, palming his soft cock. “You don’t mean that at all.” When his eyes meet McCoy’s with all the force of a plasma explosion, he smiles a little to cover the childish insistence. “Tell me you don’t mean it. I know you don’t.”

“I _don’t_ want your kind of affection if it means killing people and terrorizing my daughter and bending to your goddamn crazy whims,” he swears at him, but his cock is like an entity of its own, traitorous and foreign, and it responds to Kirk’s familiar touch. He’s no better than a trained dog like this, acting and reacting, but Kirk builds him up slowly, patient and knowing that he needs to get it out and he’ll be fine, though McCoy thinks he’s never going to be okay with this when he’s sober and clearheaded. This act of so-called compassion is supposed to be some kind demonstration of trust and goodwill, to encourage McCoy to feel faith in Kirk, but it’s not as effective as Kirk seems to think it is.

Except then McCoy looks down into his eyes an instant before Kirk closes his lips around his cock, smirking as always, and he can almost think that he could believe in this man, that he’s really begging for McCoy’s acceptance under the monstrously terrifying things he does, that seven years of his life haven’t been wasted as his accomplice, a lover, or whatever Kirk wants to call this because McCoy doesn’t have a word in any language to describe it short of _dysfunctional_.

“Kirk,” he pants, his knees weakening when Kirk sucks him deeper, pulling his orgasm out of him like a magic trick from an old hat. It never fails. McCoy can never resist, but the trick is always the same, and it pulls him back into himself, subdues his temper and frustrated rage at Kirk, at the universe for making things so awful for a man like him. He’s too soft to resist, too hard to even crack, and Kirk knows right where the line is, pushing to the limit and going no further for the purpose of reminding McCoy that he knows where it is.

Just as soon as it starts, Kirk stops, pulls away and wipes the corner of his mouth with only a shadow of his smirk from before. He looks vengeful, desperate; a little mad. He’s a monster, but he cleans himself up and pulls McCoy into bed with him, stroking him through his afterglow like a favored pet.

“You don’t mean that,” he repeats finally, and when McCoy shakes his head, resigning to agree with him, he smiles boyishly and smoothes McCoy’s rumpled hair. “Consider that a gift. Your girl, too.”

McCoy tenses at that, ready to swear at him again, but Kirk keeps smiling, so he just spits out, “I don’t need a goddamn gift for no goddamn good reason.”

“You’re wrong, Bones,” Kirk tells him and kisses his temple indulgently. “There’s a reason, when you think of it. And if you don’t believe me, check a calendar.”

He doesn’t get a chance to do so, of course, not for a few days, but Kirk’s words burn in his mind when he stops to think about his patients in sickbay, about the light years they’re hurtling past to go to Earth. For him, just for him, and Joanna, and then McCoy remembers the significance of Stardate 2262.12. Valentine’s Day. It’s some archaic holiday for love, for grand gestures and mass murder by those with a score to settle and a flair for the romantic, and this, this ongoing charade with Joanna and bringing her onto the _Enterprise_ , this is Kirk's kind of gesture.

Kirk can go straight to hell, he thinks, and breaks a tricorder by throwing it into the corner wall of his office, shouting at the soundproofed walls. He can go to hell, and he can take his shit notions of murderous romance right with him.

The problem, the worst of it all, is that for all his posturing, all his denial, he can’t even pretend he doesn’t appreciate it, that it isn’t tying the knots that bind him to Kirk and his madman will tighter still, and if Kirk goes to hell, McCoy will be there, right beside him the entire time.

*

He wishes Kirk wouldn’t look so goddamn proud of himself when Joanna squeals in delight as the door opens to reveal the both of them, but he keeps the thought to himself until they’re beaming back to the ship, Joanna’s small hand tucked neatly inside of McCoy’s much bigger one. Kirk watches them with his narrowed eyes and his lips turned into a smile, but McCoy can feel his jealousy pulsing off of him like the mirage of heat off the streets.

Kirk ignores procedure for ensuring that the room attached to the CMO’s quarters is empty, and when Nurse Trafalgar is mysteriously displaced elsewhere after McCoy stationed her in those quarters because he wasn’t using them, because he could seal the connecting door, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind why Kirk’s done it. The mutinous murmurs on the ship aren’t serious enough to put anyone on edge. McCoy’s been around long enough to know that it will fade in time.

Joanna settles in easily, adjusting in the way that only a child can do, too young to know that she should fear for her life among murderers, but she convinces Sulu to carry on her combat training and Scotty to build her a phaser that can’t kill, can’t even really stun, but she needs to learn to shoot, and Chekov is too willing to take that up himself, even after McCoy threatens to disembowel him if he does anything to her. Kirk watches her all the time, and it’s Kirk that McCoy worries about the most, except that he smiles for her, charms her the way he’s known to do, and she’s a child, she doesn’t know any better. She doesn’t even know to miss her mother now she’s gone, though she will, later, when she’s old enough to understand.

“Is it enough?” Kirk asks him one evening that week, when she’s fast asleep in her room and Kirk is sprawled over McCoy’s bed, tracing blueprints and tactical strategy on McCoy’s bare back.

McCoy looks up at him and doesn’t even have the energy to scowl at him. “Is _what_ enough?”

“You’ve got everything you wanted,” Kirk explains, as if it should be entirely obvious to him, but he’s wrong, this isn’t what he wanted. All the elements are there, but they’re assembled in all the wrong ways. “Is it enough?”

There aren’t words to explain that it’s wrong. It’s right but it’s wrong, and Kirk won’t understand that, so McCoy nods numbly.

Kirk closes his eyes, looks peaceful, content and accomplished as if nothing he’s ever done has mattered as much as doing this right, and McCoy doesn’t have the heart to tell him. It’s not right, it’ll never be right.

But McCoy even smiles when Kirk pulls him into a possessive kiss, tells himself that Kirk is trying, and he should, too, to make it enough. “It’s enough,” he says quietly, and lets the words hang over them in the room like a charm, or a curse.

Except, somehow, it really is.


End file.
